Tax Stocking Stuffers for Corporations

We already know the rich and corporations got quite a haul in the tax bill. USA Today outlines some business tax credits as if the tax breaks under the great giveaway tree aren't enough.

The massive new tax bill signed into law by President Barack Obama is filled with all kinds of holiday stocking stuffers for businesses: tax breaks for producing TV shows, grants for putting up windmills, rum subsidies for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

There is even a tax break for people who buy race horses.

This is the most outrageous one, a tax break for corporations who invest overseas. Remember all of the rhetoric about banks not funding investment and growth in America, not loaning to businesses? This is the opposite, our Congress just made it pay to create economic growth abroad!

There is a generous tax break for banks and insurance companies that invest overseas, a tax credit for railroad track maintenance, more generous write-offs for upgrading motorsport race tracks,

I kid you not! Here is what this does. It's an exemption that allows banks, insurance companies and other financial firms to shield foreign profits from being taxed by the U.S. through 2011. Cost: $9.2 billion.

There is also $13 billion in advanced research and development tax credits. The thing is, these credits do not seem to be tied to hiring Americans to do the work and it's unclear if their are any loopholes to void the requirement research must be performed within the United States. Lord knows advanced R&D is international in many ways, but that said, we know advanced R&D is being offshore outsourced to China and India to save costs. Literally there is a glut of PhDs in the United States.